Senator Schumer Wants FTC to Set Social Networking Guidelines

New York Senator Charles Schumer wants the Federal Trade Commission  to deal more aggressively with the question of social-network privacy.

Schumer issued a press release announcing that he wants regulators to look into of social-networking privacy disclosures and “ensure they are not misleading or fail to fully disclose the extent to which they share information…(and) provide guidelines for use of private information and prohibit access without user permission.”

Schumer’s decision came less than a week after Facebook announced its so-called “Open Graph,” which would create more solidified links  between social-networking sites. Facebook also introduced a personalization feature to let users of its service share personal profile information with companies who would ad a link button to facebook on their sites allowing facebook users preferences to be shared more globally.

Noting that “hundreds of millions of people use social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter every day,” Schumer said that safeguards should exist that afford users control over their personal information and block against unwanted solicitations. He also said they should incorporate “easy-to-understand disclosures” about how information they submit gets shared on the services.

Facebook was apparently caught off guard. “We were surprised by Senator Schumer’s comments and look forward to sitting down with him and his staff to clarify,” a spokesman said in an e-mail statement. Facebook maintained that none of the announced changes would reduce user control over their information. In fact, some of the changes, it said, would extend “even greater controls.”

Here is the link to the Senator’s webpage with the full story: http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/record.cfm?id=324175

Just In:“Social networking sites have become the Wild West of the Internet,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a letter he wrote Tuesday along with with three other senators whom we did not know about when I wrote this post— Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Al Franken (D-Minn.). The letter was addressed to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. “The innovation they represent is welcome but users need to have the ability to control their private information and fully understand how it’s being used.”